


Just Can't Fall Asleep

by Katherine



Category: Belsomra "Cats and Dogs" Commercial
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 12:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5457011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josephine didn't really think the butter would do much to distract Sleep from exploring and hiding, but it was worth a try. And it felt, a little, like involving Sleep in the move.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Can't Fall Asleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gigglecreek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigglecreek/gifts).



> The title is a few words of "Count On Me" by Bruno Mars:  
> If you're tossin' and you're  
> Turnin' and you just  
> Can't fall asleep  
> I'll sing a song  
> Beside you

Josephine watched as Sleep slowly licked butter off of her front paws, her white-furred nose wrinkling.

"I've caught you licking it out of the dish often enough," Josephine said. "It's the same stuff on you now, you should like it." 

Josephine didn't really think the butter would do much to distract Sleep from exploring and hiding, but it was worth a try. And it felt, a little, like involving Sleep in the move. She wanted Sleep to be able to get used to the new place. Josephine scratched Sleep under the chin, determined to give her extra affection for the next three days, the last before Wake came to live with them. Inevitably that would disrupt Sleep's routine, no matter how well or otherwise the two animals ended up taking to each other.

For her own part, Josephine liked the new house, its big windows and sturdy stairs and the back room with orange-painted walls. Beyond the house itself was the fact of living near enough green space that she could finally have Wake.

They had picked him out already. Of course they worried if it would be too much, to have Wake join them so soon after they moved. But that was the timeline that was the most doable for his breeder, and surely (Josephine put forward) less disruptive than getting him earlier. That would have involved Wake hardly having a chance to sniff the apartment before the bustle of moving, and having to be shut in a room out of the way of the worst of it. So, they brought him home after, to the house.

 

Josephine had a vague idea that one could rub both animals in some scent to get them more quickly used to each other. But as the first days turned into the first couple of weeks, she concluded that Sleep and Wake were not behaving as if they needed that help. Certainly they had their occasional spat already (mostly when Wake sprawled in what Sleep evidently considered the best patch of sunshine on the carpet). But for the most part, so far as Josephine could see, they got on well together.

Sleep liked unpacking, or rather loved getting into each cardboard box as soon as it was empty, if not before! The boxes of kitchen items, with their layers of thin packing paper, were especially fun. Turning back from putting away a stack of small plates, Josephine squinted, spotted Sleep crouching white fur on white packing paper, and rescued a mug from under her excitingly-lashing tail.

Wake meandered over, skirting around the coffee maker (on the floor until they figured out on which corner of the counter it should go), and rested his chin on one of the flaps of the box Sleep was inside of. Sleep just stared out at him, probably daring him to try to join her, but Wake seemed content with chewing at the corner of the cardboard flap. Josephine let him. She hadn't planned to reuse the boxes, anyway.

Sleep mostly took over the rectangular bed they had bought for Wake, at least a portion of most daytimes, but still joined Josephine on the bed on the quietest nights.

Wake, in significant contrast, liked mornings. Josephine tried to think of how he greeted them as singing. _It's sort of nice to be woken up by singing,_ she would remind herself. He was singing a song of wakefulness to her in the morning. He wasn't howling. And he was so adorably enthusiastic when she got up and took him outside for his morning walk.

 

The first time Sleep disappeared when Josephine was thinking of taking a nap she was tempted to take it as a sign to keep working. There were still boxes to unpack. The bed seemed much less inviting without Sleep purring on one side of it.

In fact, they wound up putting a lot of the boxes in the basement, unopened. They would get around to them. Or maybe the contents weren't particularly important, after all.

Josephine didn't mind much when Sleep disappeared in the daytime: she was off exploring, Josephine was sure. But once each day shifted into evening, she wanted Sleep near her. She liked the routine of it, Sleep twining around her feet as she went to brush her teeth.

When Josephine woke in the middle of the night, the pillow bunched up under her head, Sleep was curled up behind her knees. In the morning, Sleep had moved up the bed to next to her pillow. She slid her head under Josephine's hand, the fuzzy points of her ears tickling. It was very tempting to pet Sleep and returning to dreaming, but Wake needed to be walked (although he wasn't singing this morning, for a change) and there was still arranging left to be done in the house.

Outside, Josephine smiled when Wake looked at the folded newspaper that had been left short of the front door. That was something: showing interest. They would work on fetch later. For the moment, Josephine was fine with carrying her own newspaper. While keeping on with the morning's conversation with the neighbour she kept part of her attention on Wake, not ready to leave him unsupervised with the neighbour's pet. That one was friendly (as much so as the neighbour, actually) and so far the interactions between them had been playful. Josephine knew she needed to give Wake time with other animals like him, especially as he was not yet full-grown. The neighbour's pet was older as well as tolerant. (He probably had fetch down pat.) Still, not being the one her Wake is sharing a home with, Josephine was less concerned with how they got on than with remaining assured that her Wake and Sleep stayed friends. She glanced back at her house, and saw Sleep watching them through the wide window.

 

The day Sleep disappeared into the basement in the mid-morning and then never emerged turned in to a long and anxious one. That evening, as Josephine found herself (ridiculously) removing and replacing each of the couch cushions after laboriously moving the couches enough to check underneath, Wake made a high-pitched noise she had never heard from him before. Josephine got the impression he was worried about Sleep, too, or at any rate missed her presence. She tossed and turned for hours that night. When she woke, Wake was still in his basket, looking right at her and her unshared pillow.

He walked quickly through the house with her but it was not with his usual bounding enthusiasm. He was subdued on the walk, as well. The neighbour's pet made a series of small rushes toward him, trying to coax Wake into playing, but quieted down when Wake did not respond. Next, he rubbed his head against Wake's. Wake huffed out a noise a notch too quiet to be a bark, and turned back to Josephine. He pushed against her legs, looking back at the house, so Josephine led him back inside.

It was Wake who found Sleep, later that day. Far into the afternoon he had posted himself in the darkest corner of the basement. Only his tail was showing from behind two neglected boxes, and at that it had taken Josephine swinging the beam of her flashlight to reveal where he was. Wake had his face and front paws at the corner, and when Josephine knelt down next to him, one hand on his back, her light caught a line of unevenness between the floorboards.

How Sleep had got herself underneath the floor, Josephine never knew. It was a grimy job peeling up the boards, and she had three nail scratches on her arms before she was done. But once the opened space was large enough, Sleep unbunched herself from the dark space below and leapt up.

Wake was making his snuffling excited bark. Sleep stretched her front paws a little ways forward, then stayed still while Wake touched his nose to between her ears. Wake sneezed and backed up, and Josephine found herself laughing in relief. Next she scooped up Sleep, disregarding the way her fur was decorated with grey dust, and bore her into the kitchen.

She set down a plate of Sleep's favourite food (the mackerel flavour), then reached for a flat knife, and added a smear of butter on top. For once, she thought, she should have kept the butter in the fridge. Then she could have made pretty little curls of butter to put on as decoration. There was a homecoming to celebrate, and she would finally sleep well tonight.


End file.
